Ah, fall. A time of unbridled optimism. A
new year, new classes to take, new people to meet, new experiences to seek. Fall stands out from the other terms because, firstly, we have been barraged with over a thousand fresh-faced go-getters ready to squeeze every drop of the college experience out of Dartmouth; their enthusiasm is almost infectious, and it feels as if we all can now start from scratch: this year will be the best! Secondly, to go along with the lust for the college experience we have caught from the '05's, we each have a brand new label that we hope will bring us a new and improved identity. I am no longer Dan Galemba the sophomore; I am Dan Galemba the junior, an entirely different person whose levels of success and enjoyment achieved at this fine institution will relegate Dan Galemba the sophomore to the dustbin of memory. Oh yeah, the trees are also pretty.
But I know better than to trust this superficial enthusiasm. After all, this is Dartmouth; it's only a matter of time until the little annoyances and ludicrously senseless bickering over every minor issue builds to reach the breaking point. Right?
Maybe not. Maybe the enthusiasm, friendship, camaraderie, and hopes of the beginning of fall term are real, and maybe they're even strong enough to conquer the staunchest cynics. I, for one, have already felt my cynicism begin to melt away with the start of the term because the little annoyances I fully expected to witness have been surprisingly absent. When I went to buy a Coke out of the pop (yes, pop) machine, I literally could not believe my eyes when I saw that the price remained steady at one dollar. After the festival of exorbitant pricing Topside celebrated over the summer, it was also refreshing to note that their prices remained unaltered. Most stunning of all, the price of my meal plan is the same as it was last term! This is the first time that the cost of our meal plans wasn't unsuspectingly hiked up on us in a while.
These may seem to be insignificant indicators of any wholesale change on campus, but I think they bode well for bigger things, especially given the new spirit of friendship and camaraderie I've seen and felt in only the past few days, a feeling that has risen out of the ashes of the World Trade Center and Pentagon. People everywhere are friendly, willing to talk and, if they argue, they seem to do so rationally now instead of with the defensive fanaticism we have seen all too often in the past. We now have definitive proof of the pettiness of typical campus discourse because we have some perspective, so now, maybe we will be able to accept the relative inconsequentiality of the day-to-day decisions we make here. Having done that, our stubbornness might subside a bit, and we will be able to talk productively instead of defending our opinions to the death without even understanding why we are doing so. There are bigger problems in the world than the minor issues that fill the op-ed pages of The Dartmouth for weeks at a time.
If there is one good thing that comes out of the blow terrorists delivered to our country, it is the unity it has given us in the face of a common enemy, an enemy that threatens the way of life of each and every one of us. I hope the unity we have in the wake of the attacks does not vanish into thin air when it comes to campus issues, and thus far it doesn't seem like it has.
With typical campus annoyances staying hidden in the shadows and with a new level of cooperation and tolerance of different viewpoints, I can only imagine how much better a place Dartmouth would, and hopefully will, be. I hope my cynicism does not find the fuel usually so readily available on this campus. I hope, like Tom Daschle and Trent Lott, otherwise disparate voices on campus can unite, not necessarily to fight terrorism, but to realize the relative unimportance of the issues over which they would previously bicker. The atmosphere of cooperation must be seized now. Just as I do not want to live in fear of terrorism, I do not want to live in fear of unproductive, hostile, defensive, irrational campus discourse. We have the opportunity to turn a horrendous loss into an important gain, and Dartmouth will only improve if we take hold of that opportunity now, while the spirit of unity is still strong.
Maybe attitudes can change on this campus. Maybe we will not see minor annoyances everywhere we look. Maybe the senseless bickering will become productive dialogue. Just maybe.
